{"title":"Mediated Politics in Taiwan Political Talk Shows and Democracy","authors":"Wei-chin Lee","doi":"10.29654/TJD.201112.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.29654/TJD.201112.0004","url":null,"abstract":"Talk show programs have been a media phenomenon in many democratic societies. This essay intends to offer an analysis of media discourse and the political deliberation process in Taiwan in the 2000s, by concentrating on the talk-show fever of the past decade. Over this period, any political issue in Taiwan could easily develop into a heavily mediated political event, attracting widespread public attention and leading to a complex, intriguing power relationship among the media, politicians, and the general public. In other words, talk shows have become a forum used by various political forces in Taiwan to compete and struggle for agenda-setting power and to try to manipulate public debates in favor of their political space and place. This study illustrates several distinctive features of Taiwan's political talk shows, identifies how they frame and promote political issues, shows the mediated interaction among different political actors, and evaluates the contribution of talk shows to Taiwan's democratic deliberation process.","PeriodicalId":403398,"journal":{"name":"Taiwan journal of democracy","volume":"22 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117248464","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Young Citizens and Political Participation Online Media and Civic Cultures","authors":"Peter Dahlgren","doi":"10.29654/TJD.201112.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.29654/TJD.201112.0002","url":null,"abstract":"The first part of this essay focuses on the theme of civic engagement, set against the dilemmas of democracy confronting the West. It examines the role of the digital media in this regard, while at the same time trying to illuminate the challenges in broader socio-cultural terms. Specifically, it underscores that the Web environment constitutes a key social site, especially for young people in late modernity, and that the contingencies of its use and the potential it offers have significance for the character of democracy. The second part of the essay offers an analytical framework for examining civic cultures. Civic cultures can support democratic agency and are shaped by a variety of factors. The media, however, are of particular importance here. The framework is modeled as a circuit with six mutually reciprocal dimensions, each opening up an avenue of possible empirical research.","PeriodicalId":403398,"journal":{"name":"Taiwan journal of democracy","volume":"340 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124780936","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Theorizing Journalism Education, Citizenship, and New Media Technologies in a Global Media Age","authors":"P. Mihailidis, Moses Shumow","doi":"10.29654/TJD.201112.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.29654/TJD.201112.0003","url":null,"abstract":"This essay details the results of fifty-four open-ended interview questionnaires with university-level communication students from eleven countries, exploring the opportunities and challenges for journalism and news in participatory democracy. The study participants were enrolled in a three-week summer global media literacy program, at the end of which they were asked to complete an open-ended survey questionnaire, asking about the role digital media technologies and social media platforms have on journalism and its role in a participatory democracy. Results highlight a general negativity toward the growing influence of new media technologies in journalism with regard to objectivity, autonomy, balance, and depth, juxtaposed with the embrace of the same technologies in contributing to greater citizen participation, voice, and inclusion in journalism and news flow. This divide raises questions around the relationship between journalism, journalism education, and technology in the context of participatory citizenship. The study concludes by recommending a more integrative model for journalism education than presently followed that addresses the disjuncture evidenced in this study between professional notions of journalism and participatory citizenship in the digital age.","PeriodicalId":403398,"journal":{"name":"Taiwan journal of democracy","volume":"43 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125608543","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Media and Citizenship","authors":"Juliet Pinto, S. Hughes","doi":"10.29654/TJD.201112.0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.29654/TJD.201112.0001","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":403398,"journal":{"name":"Taiwan journal of democracy","volume":"51 3 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115977692","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Democracy as a Westminster Heritage","authors":"Dag Anckar","doi":"10.29654/TJD.201107.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.29654/TJD.201107.0003","url":null,"abstract":"Conventional wisdom from colonial history research has it that the states which the British left behind them were better equipped for democratic government than the states that had belonged to other colonial powers. Investigating the democracy fortunes of all fifty-four territories that were freed following World War II from British control, and applying Freedom House ratings to determine democracy status, this study examines the belief that democratic government has become a characteristic feature of former British possessions. Findings are that the former colonies may be ordered roughly into three groups. Whereas seventeen countries since 1972 have always, or almost always, been classified as democracies, a larger portion, consisting of twenty-three countries, has always, or almost always, been ranked as non-democracies. The remaining fourteen countries represent an in-between category. On the whole, therefore, the idea that democracy is a central part of the Westminster heritage overall cannot be supported. Explanations for the division of the former colonies into three groups have been researched in different directions, and the efforts substantiate earlier observations in the literature on the relevance to democratization of factors that relate to state size, modernization, and geography. Concerning the impact of the length of colonial rule, the findings confirm an earlier suggestion by Samuel Huntington that colonies which had a long British presence have been particularly well equipped to develop into stable democracies.","PeriodicalId":403398,"journal":{"name":"Taiwan journal of democracy","volume":"27 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115034845","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Determinants of Public Attitudes Toward the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in Taiwan","authors":"Joel S. Fetzer, J. Soper","doi":"10.29654/TJD.201107.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.29654/TJD.201107.0005","url":null,"abstract":"This article investigates the current attitudes of the Taiwanese public toward the rights of aborigines (Yuanzhumin), a neglected topic both in Taiwan and throughout the world. The theoretical literature on ethnic politics suggests that such attitudes might be rooted in one's level of education, ethnic group conflict and partisanship, intergroup contact, and/or religion-like ideology (Confucian values). Using data from the 2006 Taiwan Social Image Survey I and our 2009 privately commissioned poll on support for the rights of Taiwanese aborigines, we test these four theories and find that higher education increases support for aboriginal rights. The results confirm the ethno-partisanship model for 2006 but not for 2009. Conversely, the percentage of Yuanzhumin living in a region boosted hostility toward them in 2009 but not in 2006. We likewise discover that two Confucian values (family loyalty and social hierarchies) have no statistically significant effect on attitudes toward Yuanzhumin. A third key Confucian value, social harmony, appears to increase support for aboriginal rights. Surprisingly, Confucian values seem to pose no hindrance to the advancement of ethnic minorities' rights and may, in fact, even promote them.","PeriodicalId":403398,"journal":{"name":"Taiwan journal of democracy","volume":"14 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132864174","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Multiparty Democracies and Rapid Economic Growth a Twenty-first Century Breakthrough?","authors":"D. Joshi","doi":"10.29654/TJD.201107.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.29654/TJD.201107.0002","url":null,"abstract":"This essay examines whether developing countries with competitive multiparty democracies may be just as capable of sustaining rapid economic growth as single-party states. It begins with a literature review identifying political stability and the ability to mobilize labor and capital production inputs as key factors behind sustained rapid growth. It then develops the hypothesis that under certain conditions, multiparty democracies may be strong in these dimensions, but ceteris paribus, single-party states are likely to have an advantage. I test this hypothesis by exploring historical trends in rapid growth over the last five decades. Statistical regression analysis confirms that most sustained high-growth regimes have not been competitive multiparty democracies. On a more optimistic note, however, the number of high-growth multiparty democracies increased significantly during the period between 2000 and 2009, signaling a possible breakthrough in the twenty-first century.","PeriodicalId":403398,"journal":{"name":"Taiwan journal of democracy","volume":"29 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126145722","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Semi-presidentialism in Taiwan a Shadow of the Constitution of the Weimar Republic","authors":"Yu-chung Shen","doi":"10.29654/TJD.201107.0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.29654/TJD.201107.0007","url":null,"abstract":"When a semi-presidential constitution is adopted in a young democracy, there is much discussion about the relationship between semi-presidentialism and the stability of the democracy. The Weimar Republic was one of the original semipresidential regimes. Although the Weimar Constitution was meant to provide for a parliamentary system, the actual exercise of the Weimar Constitution was consistent with semi-presidentialism. Taiwan is a young democracy that has a semi-presidential constitution. The design of Taiwan's constitution resembles that of the Weimar Constitution. The first version was a revision of the Weimar Constitution and was primarily parliamentary. However, with the 1997 constitutional revisions, Taiwan's constitutional structure acquired many semi-presidential features. This essay argues that Taiwan's constitution was originally inspired by the Weimar model, and with revision in 1997, became very Weimar-like. It attempts to introduce the design, revisions, and functions of the constitution in Taiwan.","PeriodicalId":403398,"journal":{"name":"Taiwan journal of democracy","volume":"55 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124634670","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}